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Is PC the Underdog on Saturday Night?

ekiyor-carleton

On the very first Ed Cooley Radio Show of the season, the Friars’ head coach made it clear that his team had a big challenge in front of them when they host Carleton University of Canada in their only public exhibition game of the preseason (Oct. 29 at the Dunkin Donuts Center).

It wasn’t coach speak. Cooley referenced Carleton’s blowout victory over Wichita State in August (100-75), and a closer look at PC’s opponent on Saturday reveals just how challenging the exhibition opener will be.

Carleton took Syracuse to overtime in back-to-back seasons, first in 2013 and then 2014.

They defeated Frank Kaminsky, Sam Dekker and Wisconsin in 2014.

The Ravens gave Villanova all they could handle three years ago, and own victories over Baylor, Memphis and Valparaiso in recent seasons.

No wonder Cooley said he’d be surprised if the Friars were to win this one.

Carleton has dominated Canadian college basketball over the past 15 years, winning 12 of the last 14 national championships, including every one since 2011.

They own winning streaks of 87 and 55 games during that span, and were featured on Grantland as “The Canadian College Basketball Dynasty You’ve Never Heard Of” in a fascinating 2014 article on their dominance and the reasons behind it.

When Carleton comes to the Dunkin Donuts Center on Saturday, they’ll also bring a familiar face — or a familiar name, at least to recruiting junkies.

6’9 Eddie Ekiyor is a Canadian native and former Providence recruit who committed to Xavier and redshirted last season, but left school in April without playing a game there. Ekiyor prepped locally at New Hampton (NH) and chose Xavier over Florida and Miami.

With all of Carleton’s success over the past decade and a half they’ve never seen one of their own reach the NBA, and with Ekiyor’s size and athleticism the hope in Ottawa is that he’ll be their first to make the League.

* * *

For more on Carleton, see Grantland’s 2014 feature. Here is an excerpt:

Because basketball in the CIS is not a billion-dollar industry like it is in the NCAA, Carleton faces few regulations. For one, Smart is allowed to work with both the Ravens and the Ottawa Guardsmen, his youth team, which spends its summers playing AAU tournaments in the United States and serves as something of a feeder program for Carleton. Imagine John Calipari coaching elite high schoolers at the Peach Jam or the Adidas Super 64. That’s essentially what’s allowed to happen in Canada. “There’s not really a need to have those restrictions,” says Smart. “There’s not enough money in basketball here for us to have to deal with the street agents. And besides, in this entire country you have maybe 45 or 50 people who are professional basketball coaches. Are you really going to have rules where those people aren’t allowed to give back to the grass roots? You’re hurting the kids if you’re not allowing them to be developed by the coaches who really know the game.”

CIS players get five years of eligibility, allowing them more time to develop, and perhaps most important, schools face minimal restrictions on practice time. In the NCAA, players may spend no more than 20 hours a week on “athletically related activities” during the season and no more than eight hours a week in the offseason. In Canada, coaches face no limitations during the season, and though they’re unable to conduct full practices during the summer, they can still work with players one-on-one. “If it’s July and my best player wants to spend eight hours a day working with me in the gym, we can do that,” Smart says. “Sometimes it’s crazy to look at an NCAA team with a lot of talent and hear talk about how they’re not well coached. Well, maybe they’re not, but in a lot of cases, that’s not the coach’s fault. There are a lot of really, really good Division I coaches, but the NCAA has set up a system where they’re not allowed to coach. Same thing with the players. You see a player who’s not improving, so it looks like he’s not working hard. Well, if you’re not getting coached, you can work as hard as you want, but what if you’re practicing bad habits? You’re still not going to improve.”

Email Kevin at kevin.farrahar@friarbasketball.com

Follow him on Twitter: @Kevin_Farrahar

2 Comments

  1. Derec Lamendola

    October 27, 2016 at 10:02 pm

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  2. Anonymous

    October 27, 2016 at 10:35 pm

    Carleton has performed very well vs top NCAA programs, especially on their home floor. But while they have racked up some very impressive wins wins against visiting teams, they have yet to beat any D1 program in their home court.

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